


welcome home

by hahaharley



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Found Family, Friendship/Love, Gen, for the purposes of this fic we're sidestepping the epilogue, some pre-Amanda/Martin but nothing too solid, this isn't exactly season 2 compliant either lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9520238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hahaharley/pseuds/hahaharley
Summary: Amanda adjusts to life with the Rowdy Three.





	1. Chapter 1

Living out of a van with a bunch of anarchist punk pseudo-vampires is not where Amanda saw herself at twenty-four, but then, there are a lot of things she never saw coming about her young adult life.

Anyway, say four arms of physically embodied chaos show up in your life, flirting wordlessly for a few days via their battered, spray-painted (and weirdly verbal) van and note-wrapped bricks before making first contact, whereupon they just _assume_ you're going to be a part of their lives and you'll be part of theirs from now on—what are you gonna do, _not_ run away with them?

( _"Yes!"_ she can hear her brother's voice answering that question, hitting that note of panic totally unique to Todd Brotzman. _"Yes,_ _ **not**_ _climbing into a van with those guys and disappearing_ _ **is**_ _the smart move in this scenario!"_ Todd can be surprisingly square when it comes to some things.)

The truth is, Amanda's always been an adventurer, drawn to and thrilled by things that on their surface tend to frighten and revile other people. If she never envisioned that she'd be living her life among the Rowdy Three, it's only because—especially after her illness took hold—she never imagined that she'd be so lucky.

* * *

"Cross," says Amanda, popping out of the van one morning before they set out on their daily reign of terror, "what's this?"

Cross, the subject of her address because he just so happens to be the nearest of the Three to the door, squints briefly at the object she's brandishing at him before answering, dismissively, "'S a picture of you" and turning back to secure his bag.

"…yeah. I… see that," Amanda says, glancing pointedly again at the framed photo. "What's it doing in the van?"

Gripps, on his way past them, says, "Martin took it," which doesn't go very far in helping her understand what happened, though he seems to regard that answer as the end of it, not even checking his stride. Obviously, Amanda's not going to get anywhere until she goes directly to the source.

She heads over to where Martin is waiting for the rest of the group to finish up—as usual, he was up and had his stuff loaded before any of the rest of them even awoke. He's sitting on one of the old abandoned seats decking out the campsite, elbows resting on splayed knees, hunched over with the perpetual cigarette held in the crook of his mouth and staring into the middle distance. Amanda has gotten to know all the guys a little more by now, and knows that Martin will definitely take the chance to tease her by pretending not to notice her if she gives him the chance, so she doesn't give him the chance—she stops beside him and holds the picture directly in front of his face.

His gaze adjusts; he's now peering at the photo through lenses so smudged and dirty Amanda thinks it's a miracle he can see anything at all. After a few seconds, he lifts his eyes— _just_ his eyes; he peers over his glasses at her for a second, then lifts an eyebrow and exhales a little cloud of smoke in a nonverbal question. _What?_

 _Oh, he wants to play hardball._ Amanda isn't exactly _worried_ at the discovery of a personal effect that _she_ didn't pack in the van—she's way past the point of regarding the Three as a threat against her in _any_ way—but it _is_ weird, and she _does_ want an explanation. She cocks a knee out, puts her hand on her hip, and wiggles the photo a little, but he just keeps his eyes on her. "What, me?" she answers. "Just wanting to know why a photo that _used_ to be safely in my brother's apartment was buried under a pile of clothes in the van. Y'know, _I_ sure as hell didn't bring it."

Martin breaks the strong, silent act with a sudden grin, and he taps the glass in the frame with the edge of one of his rings. "Needed a better look atchya," he says, and pinches the filter of his cigarette between forefinger and thumb, removing it from his mouth for a second so he can tap off the ash with his middle finger.

In a way, his total lack of embarrassment reassures her—because it's what she _expected_ ; if he was weird about being confronted it might make her uncomfortable, suspicious. His total confidence that he had a good reason for having the photo makes her _believe_ he did, so her eyes are a little softer even as she demands, "Better than _what?_ "

"You remember the first time you met that Dirk guy?"

Amanda's eyes narrow. "I _knew_ it; I _knew_ that's how you guys found my house."

"Bullseye," he says in warm-toned approval. "All of us knew when we got close—something _real_ interesting was goin' on with the person in that house, and we wanted in on it. We spotted you through the window, but we couldn't get a good look, so when we were bustin' up your brother's place later that night, I saw _that_ —" he jabs at the picture frame with the stump of his cigarette—"and snagged it. Good enough?"

Still weird, but Amanda's never been the type to judge—especially given that the action in question led to her meeting the Three. Still, she can't resist teasing a little, and she tries with some success to hold back a grin as she questions, "Just needed a better look at me, huh? Sure that's the only reason?"

Martin's way too cool a guy to look hunted, ever, but Amanda thinks his stare in response to that is a little bit _too_ steady, like he's working really hard to keep it that way. "You got another one you're wondering about?"

The grin slips through despite her best efforts. "Sure it wasn't love at first sight, Martin?"

He can't seem to help himself, cool guy or not—he snorts at that, two dragonlike streams of smoke pouring from his nostrils, and she tilts her head back and laughs, easing up on him. When she glances at him again, he's looking at her with that expression of affectionate adoration she's gotten repeatedly from all four boys since that day she first climbed into their van, the one she can't seem to get her fill of. She likes to think there's a similar fondness in her expression as she smirks down at him.

Then Vogel is cawing at them, jumping and waving his hands in the air like he has to work for their attention despite the fact that they're just ten yards away from the van. "C'mon, we're packed up! Time to go!"

"Someone's hungry," Amanda notes, amused, and offers her hand—Martin clasps it in his smoky, grimy one and lets her haul all ten miles of him to his feet, and she knocks her shoulder lovingly into his before letting him go and making tracks towards Vogel, scolding him good-naturedly for his impatience. Martin, forgotten, takes a second to visibly shake himself, then leans over, picks up his baseball bat, rests it on his shoulder, and follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was born of two things: first, the fact that dating from their very first appearance, my brain kept screaming "new boyfriends! new boyfriends! new boyfriends!" the entire time the Rowdy 3 were on my screen, then the Amanda storyline (the absolute ideal; everything I've ever wanted from a show) played out and left me glowy for _days_
> 
> and second, my need for some backstory/slice of life stuff centered around Amanda and the guys. I found myself thinking about it a lot so I wrote some down. Later on I might write something longer with a recognizable plot, but this fic will probably be just a few short chapters, just me stretching my legs and saying "hi" to a new fandom.


	2. Chapter 2

So there's definitely a learning curve when it comes to the Rowdy Three adjusting to their fifth member. Early on, she's a little shyer around them, and she puts it off as long as she can, filling up on beer the first time she spends a full day with them, but she regrets it in the morning—as they're all stirring awake around the dying embers of the fire, her stomach lets out an unholy rumble that has all four of the guys laughing sleepily but hysterically at her.

She groans, hungover and mortified but mostly just hungry. "Oh, my god," she says, curling around her wretchedly empty stomach, "I'm gonna _die._ "

"Oh, no you're not, drummer girl," Martin says, lighting his first cigarette of the day—he hasn't even bothered to get up yet, lying on his back across the fire from her, head pillowed on one bent elbow.

"You're not getting rid of us that easily," Cross adds as he rolls to his feet and trudges off into the brush. Half-asleep still, Gripps hands her an unopened beer that he had stashed somewhere on his person—it's warm and frothy, but she drinks it gratefully, glad for both the hair of the dog and the calories, and doesn't expect anything more, because if the guys ever _did_ need normal human food they sure as hell don't anymore. Given that they only eat about once every day in a good week, she doesn't think they'll know just what and how much she needs despite their best intentions, and resigns herself to figuring something out as soon as they're back in town.

As soon as they're all loaded into the van with their stuff, Martin roars "Breakfast time, boys!" and, spurred on by encouraging howls and banging on the sides of the van, he peels out, heading for the city.

Despite that, Amanda still thinks they must be talking about _their_ breakfast (she blames beer first thing in the morning for that) and when they ram into a truck in town, she's feeling sleepy and lethargic and waves them on without her (she blames the beer for _that,_ too). She should really learn not to underestimate them. She doesn't realize what the truck they'd hit _was_ until they're all back in the van, peeling away from the scene of the riot, and Martin bellows "All right, turn your pockets out!", and the others dump a (frankly, obscene) bunch of fresh produce on the van floor.

Amanda's eyes go wide. She's not really the type of girl to squeal, but _something_ high-pitched certainly escapes her as she snatches a pair of oranges rolling by up in one hand, a green apple in the other, and cradles them to her chest as she lifts her eyes to the boys. They're grinning, proud of themselves, and Vogel cackles at the look of wonder on her face.

"What, you thought we were gonna let you _starve_?" he demands, and then he _definitely_ squeaks as she drops the oranges so she can grab his jacket lapel, dragging him near and planting a noisy kiss directly on his filthy cheek. The others crow and cheer, Martin banging the heel of his hand enthusiastically on the dashboard, and when Vogel finally frees himself he retreats across the van, bright red, looking both embarrassed and pleased. Amanda sets about gathering the food into a pile, shooting happy grins at whichever of the boys glances at her for the rest of the morning.

After that, food is never an issue. They swipe stuff from delivery trucks, takeout guys, and open-air markets all the time. Once, as they bust up a flea market, Amanda finds a battered campfire stove and loads it up on the van before they leave, then boom: she's eating hot meals again.

(She'd feel a _lot_ worse about the rampant amount of stealing they do if not for the fact that Gripps had clued her in to the fact that the Rowdy Three, doing their thing, are actually performing quite the public service. Early on, they'd been cruising in the van, Martin driving, Gripps riding shotgun. Amanda was resting her elbows on the shoulders of their respective seats, suggesting target after target. She was dying to blow off some steam, but Martin kept rejecting her suggestions with a clipped, unclarified "Nope," and it was making her mad.

Obviously, she didn't have to express the uptick in agitation, and Gripps spoke up to address it. "We don't go after just anyone, Manda."

"Oh, yeah? What's the criteria, then?" she asked, her frustration making her sarcastic.

"We're looking for a buildup. Someone about to pop—anger, usually. Panic or anxiety, sometimes. When we feel _that,_ we go, we stir it all up, we take it all away."

He didn't say anything else, and Amanda fell back to digest the information. It took her a while to see the extent of what he meant, but after a couple of weeks, it was as obvious to her as if she'd always known. The Three never framed it that way—delighting too much in their disreputability, she suspected—but she saw it over and over again, a person about to bubble over, to explode. Too many times, they'd jump a target, and from somewhere on their person, a gun would go flying. Without fail, rendered invisible by the chaos around them, Martin or Cross would snatch it up, disassemble it, and trash it in a nearby garbage can or dumpster before rejoining the fray.

Nobody ever mentions it, and Amanda takes her cue and stays quiet, but she can't help but wonder how many lives have been saved—however temporarily—by the Three drawing out that ugly energy. After about ten too many encounters like that, she starts thinking they're doing way more public good than harm.)

After that, they start getting so much food for her that it gets to be _too_ much, partially because there's definitely some healthy one-upmanship going on between them regarding who can find her the best stuff, starting when Gripps leaves a chocolate orange wrapped in gold on her pillow one night. Cross immediately follows up with a little basket of fresh baguettes, then Vogel, with a distinct air of triumph, presents a pink box containing four (slightly squashed) chocolate cupcakes decked out in brightly colored frosting flowers.

Martin, somehow and hilariously, procures and hauls home an entire _case_ of Moët  & Chandon. (She shares it; Vogel is a fan.)

And that's just the _start_ of it.

Amanda doesn't want to crush their enthusiasm (it makes them so _happy_ ), but when the stashed food starts to threaten the amount of sitting space in the van, she makes herself speak up. "Um, guys? Not that this isn't, like, the best thing ever, but this is a _lot_ of food." There's some grinning and nudging between them, and she doesn't think they're getting what she's trying to say. "I'm serious, it's awesome, but if I try to eat it all, I'm going to get _really_ fat."

They laugh at her—apparently, being a psychic vampire keeps you rangy, so the concept of watching one's figure is kind of foreign to them—but slowly, the quantity of the food they find for her dwindles to a reasonable amount. They still bring her special things constantly, though.

Amanda's fine with that.

* * *

Farah worries, because of course she does, so Amanda makes a point to call her about once a week to check in.

"Amanda," Farah says gently on one of these occasions—Amanda is on a payphone, her back turned to the scene of the boys wreaking havoc a few dozen yards away—"doesn't it get a little… you know… _loud_?"

Amanda laughs. _Loud_ might just be the understatement of the century; between the snoring and the nightmares, the boys aren't even quiet when they _sleep._ "Farah," she says when she recovers, "I've spent way too long locked up, totally isolated, in my dead silent house. Too much more quiet and I'd probably go crazier than I already am."

After a short pause, Farah says, "I just can't imagine spending every waking moment with them. They're nerve-racking enough in small doses."

Amanda glances over her shoulder, and the movement catches Martin's eye—he flourishes his bat in her direction, grins ferociously, and then, definitely showing off a little, shatters the meter maid's back windshield in one powerful blow. Amanda laughs, delighted, and then says to Farah, "You're just gonna have to trust me. These guys are the best thing that have happened to me in _years_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> forgive me a little bit of schmaltz; I'm such a sucker for found family stuff, especially when it works out this _well_.
> 
> Thanks so much for the comments and kudos! I'll update again soon, this time making good on some of that backstory I was talking about.
> 
> ps martin stole the champagne from a wedding, natch


	3. Chapter 3

Late one night, Amanda has an attack.

She's asleep when it hits and wakes up in the middle of it. The ropes are around her neck, twisting so tight that she can't breathe, and she chokes, trying fruitlessly to draw breath—

—and then, the touch of fingertips, the cool feeling of her panic being drawn out of her body, and the ropes disappear. They were never there to begin with. Amanda can breathe again, and she spends a few seconds gulping in the air, her heart rate steadily lowering again in the absence of the fear and panic.

It was a rainy night, so sleeping in the open had been a no-go, and it was also pretty windy, so using the tents they kept strapped to the roof of the van seemed like a bad idea, as well. They'd opted to take cover in the van instead, Martin and Gripps asleep in the front seats, Vogel, Cross, and Amanda piled up in the back. By the time Amanda feels like she can speak, Vogel, the one to tend to her this time, has retreated to the back of the van and is burrowed under the giant pile of blankets he favors.

"How did you know?" she whispers. It's not early in the evening, she'd been the last to fall asleep, and the way her throat had felt made it impossible for her to get more than a whispery little croak out as she fought for air, so she doubts she'd awoken him through _sound_.

Vogel doesn't answer, and she realizes he's already asleep again—come to think of it, she's not sure he was ever awake at _all_. Cross, though, lying across from her, has started to stir, and, eyes squinty and voice hoarse and soft with sleep, he answers her question: "When your feelings spike, we feel it."

Amanda pillows her head on her arm. "Even when you're asleep?"

"We can _always_ tell when it's you," he says firmly, as if that's answer enough.

Mortifyingly, Amanda feels her eyes start to well up—she's a little vulnerable, sleepy and freshly drained, so her usual defenses are gone, but still, that's no excuse to get all _weepy_. She tries quickly to wipe her eyes before anyone notices, but trying to hide your emotions from a set of guys who have their finger on _that_ pulse at all time is an exercise in futility, and Cross smiles at her, a tender expression far from his usual manic grin. "Shut _up_ ," she mumbles, because that smile is going to make her cry _more_ , and he reaches out his hand, the usual fingerless gloves stripped for sleep.

She takes it, finding comfort in his rough skin, the strong fingers tightly wound through her own.

From the front seat, just past her head, comes Martin's sleepy rumble: "It's all right now, Drummer."

Amanda knows too well just how right he is, and she closes her eyes, drinking in the reassurance that she just can't get enough of, the safety they've given her now after she's spent years in isolation and fear. As uncharacteristically mushy as it is, she's so overwhelmed with the feeling that she wants to sit up right then, to start loudly declaring to them all how grateful she is, how good and right this all feels.

How much she loves them.

She opens her eyes again to see that Gripps is smiling in his sleep, and thinks then that maybe she doesn't have to say it out loud at all. She thinks it's pretty likely they all know exactly how she feels.

At any rate, it's late, and the boys need their sleep, so she relaxes. Hand-in-hand with Cross, with Vogel snoring at her feet, her head pressed against the seat at Martin's back, and Gripps directly in her eyeline, she lets the sound of the rain lull her again into a safe, contented sleep.

* * *

Slowly, she pieces together the stories.

It takes time, because none of them likes to talk much about the past, and she doesn't blame them. From what she gathers, life at Blackwing was no picnic. It's not that they don't seem to trust her: all of them will answer almost any direct question she asks, but all that does is make her take that trust seriously. Despite her burning curiosity and the fact that she has never in her life been accused of being tactful, Amanda can tell that the guys are hesitant about that history in a way they're not in any other area of their lives. They're tough, they can take any and all kinds of pain, but Amanda doesn't see why that means she should be the cause of any more.

So, totally against her usual impulses, she's patient. She doesn't force the topic, and it pays off—the guys talk a lot, and inevitably, little by little, stuff comes out on its own.

During a conversation in the van early on, somewhere between Seattle and Portland, she learns that Cross and Vogel were both plucked out of foster care at a young age—although several years apart—presumably reported by foster parents who didn't know what to do with them.

"Yeah, Cross thought he was gonna have to fight us," Martin muses, his tone matter-of-fact, but with a current of pride underneath.

"Scrappiest kid _I've_ ever seen," Gripps agrees, and Vogel and Cross cackle.

"What did he do?" asks Amanda, careful but encouraged by their laughter—they seem to be a lot more casual about the specifics of their captivity when it comes to telling stories about their history with each other.

"What was I _supposed_ to do?" Cross demands. "They throw me in this _jail cell_ with these two guys I don't know, I thought I was about to get murdered."

Gripps is laughing. "Nothin' we said would convince the poor kid we weren't about to just kill and eat him."

"See," Martin says, eyes on the road ahead but obviously addressing Amanda, "those were early days. Gripps and me, we'd only just gotten there ourselves. This was before they started thinking we were a… _bad influence_ —" he waves his cigarette around as he speaks, and he pronounces these last words with heavy mockery—"on each other, before they tried keepin' us apart, so the idea was: same disease, you get quarantined together." His tone makes it clear what he thinks of that, _disease_. "So they shove Cross in here with two other teenagers, both older than him, without a second thought."

"We were dealing with our own shit, but we felt for the kid," adds Gripps. "We wanted to help him out, try to explain what was happening, but for the first day, he just wasn't having it."

"Shouted down anyone who tried to say two words to him." Martin chuckles. "I've never heard a thirteen-year-old cuss like that."

"Remember, he threw his food at the guards?" says Gripps, nudging Martin with an elbow and then laughing heartily.

"Yeah, then the next day they came by and tried to take me for testing," Cross says. "Didn't even get to lay hands on me before Martin headbutted the bejesus out of one and Gripps hit the other so hard he fell and didn't get back up. I thought, 'hmmmm'"—and he's clearly going for a dramatic tone, but it's marred a little by the grin splitting across his face—"maybe these guys aren't my enemy."

"Oh, ya think?" Gripps says, and Cross reaches up to punch him in the shoulder.

"What about you?" Amanda asks, tapping her fingertips across the top of Vogel's head. "How'd you feel about the guys?"

"Man, I was scared out of my _mind,_ " he says with a broad grin.

"This was five years after they brought me in," Cross notes in an undertone.

Vogel talks over him easily. "I was _ten years old!_ Martin, hold old were you then?"

"Twenty-two," answers Martin, flicking ash out the window.

"Yeah, and Gripps and Cross weren't too far behind!"

Gripps is chuckling softly. "Couldn't get a _word_ out of you for a full _week_."

"Well, you were _nice_ ," Vogel says to him, "but it's not like I could _trust_ you. My foster mom was nice, too!"

"What made you change your mind?" Amanda asks.

He snorts. "They freakin' _ignored_ me."

Cross laughs loudly. "We did _not_."

"We were _tryin'_ to give you space," Gripps says.

"Yeah, well, I was _ten_ ," Vogel replies, but he's grinning, amused by the situation in hindsight. "I went right from being scared of you to thinking you didn't like me."

"Runt started hovering nearby, creeping closer and closer each day," says Cross with clear affection. "One day, the three of us are sitting at a table playin' cards—"

"Egyptian Rat Screw," Gripps specifies.

"—right, and the stack's getting _high_ , face card after face card, and no one's taking it. We're all tense as hell, man! Any second, someone's going to play a double, then it's all over, and sure enough, I play a jack, then _Martin_ plays a jack, and before _any_ of us can process it—SMACK!" Cross emphatically bangs the roof of the van. "Vogel'd snuck up without any of us noticing him, and he slapped his way in, no competition whatsoever."

Amanda smiles, picturing the scene, hearing the joyous whoops that no doubt accompanied Vogel's triumph—with the way the Rowdy Three function as a tight family unit, she knows it must have killed them to have Vogel, one of their own, nearby, so scared and so distant. His willingness to finally join them probably put them over the moon.

"We had to stop playing that game after that," Gripps muses, scratching the edge of his chin with two silvery nails. "Vogel was just too quick. It started to get ugly."

"Martin started slamming a fist down on the stack instead of slapping," Cross says, half-accusingly, half proudly. "Had to make those hits _hurt_."

"Ah, we were being shown up by a ten-year-old," Martin jokes in his deadpan way. "Someone had to do _something_."

"I'm hungry," Vogel volunteers abruptly, to various noises of agreement, and the talk of the early days quickly gets buried under plans for their next stop, and Amanda considers what she learned.

If Vogel came along a good deal later than the others, then the moniker _Rowdy Three_ makes sense—though she's glad they didn't change their title; it's better this way, she thinks, better still now that there are five of them.

So now she knows how Vogel and Cross joined the group, but that's just left her with more questions about the beginning of it all—who'd the government catch first, Gripps or Martin? How did they find them in the first place? Cross had described their habitations as being cell-like, and Martin had mentioned cages before, and isolation. Amanda, adding up what she'd heard with what she already knew, thinks it sounded like they'd let the Rowdy Three stick together at least until Vogel came, and his arrival might have sparked… something. Some kind of new unity, a flow between the four, which the government might have seen as a threat. Certainly the group wouldn't be the same without Vogel; she tries to imagine the Rowdy Three as just… well, _three,_ and can't do it.

So separation must have followed Vogel's arrival. She knows from her occasional contact with Dirk that the big Blackwing break had happened over sixteen years ago, which must not have been long after Vogel arrived, given the boys' respective ages.

_Bad move,_ she thinks of the Blackwing agents, whoever was stupid enough to decide to split the boys apart. _If you hadn't pissed them off like that, maybe you wouldn't be having so many problems now._

She's glad they did, though, because even besides the fact that it sends a flicker of rage through her to imagine them separated from each other, locked in rooms like cages, their escape meant that years later, they were sitting in a van outside of her house. She isn't much for prayer, generally, but even so, she sends something into the air— _keep Blackwing agents obtuse and our van fast_ —and then Cross is waving a hand half an inch in front of her face and bellowing, "Earth to Manda!"

She grins immediately. "What, what? I'm sorry!"

"Look at you, Ms. Spaceout," he says with the glee they all prominently show when they're teasing her, and she lunges at him, getting an arm around his neck (it's a reach, but she manages) and sending them both careening into the van wall, to the others' yowling approval.

He lets her pin him—she's pretty strong and getting stronger every day now that she gets to spend so much time in the sun and fresh air, bashing things to pieces, but right now she still has nothing on the guys unless they choose to let her—and punch him idly in the chest as she muses on what he should do to make up for the "disrespect," finally landing on, "You gotta get me some fresh weed; I shared the last of mine with you losers last week."

"Oh, right," he groans, half-laughing. "Where the hell am I supposed to just _find_ pot?"

"I am _sure_ you will figure that out," she says, scratching teasingly at his jawline right in front of his ear and then kissing him noisily on his forehead before climbing off of him, clasping his forearm, and hauling him off his back into a sitting position.

"Guess so," he grumbles, but he looks pleased—all of them, actually, are regarding her with that ferocious fondness.

Amanda feels herself blushing in the glare of all the affection, so, deflecting, she says, "I thought you guys were hungry? Come on, let's go, I want to bust some guys up!"

"You got it," Martin says. "Just hold tight—" and he opens the throttle, making the van roar as it carries them into town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with the boys' respective ages, because I'm sorry but there is no way Michael Eklund is 54, _nobody_ ages that well—so that was intentional, but if you spot shit that doesn't mesh with the show or comics, let me know, it's entirely too possible that I overlooked something. But yeah. I wanted to dig into why the guys vibe like they do, and I thought age and capture order might have something to do with that, so here we are, touching on it briefly.
> 
> More about Martin and Gripps next. Thanks so much for the continued support! I'm having fun; I hope y'all are, too.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh shit sorry for the delay, guys, turns out trying to get a mortgage for the first time fucks w/ your spare time and creative energy! it's a nightmare. Don't do it!

She finds out more about Gripps and Martin later, from Gripps himself.

They've just parked for the night, she's not sure where—somewhere in the pacific northwest, that's all she really knows anymore—but there are trees, and it's chilly, the overcast sky making the day prematurely dark.

With practiced, familiar fluidity, the guys move to set up the campsite, and Amanda is about to pitch in before someone touches her arm—it's Gripps, and when she turns to give him a questioning stare, he responds by tossing something at her, which she catches instinctively: it's a heavy Maglite, scratched to shit, doubtless from being used occasionally as a weapon.

"Gotta repair the Beast," he says, holding up a roll of duct tape. "Will you hold the light?"

"Of course," she answers, rewarded by his sweet smile, and she follows him around to the front of the van while the rest of the guys drag sleeping bags down from the roof and set a fire.

The van, she has learned by now (and always suspected), is as much of a member of the Rowdy 3 as the men themselves—it's in the way it growls and talks, in the wild colors of the spray paint arcing across its surface and, significantly, in the way it _never fucking breaks down,_ no matter how hard they push it or how many cars and buildings they ram it into. When Gripps says _repairs,_ he means cosmetic, because the bumpers inevitably detach every couple of days at least, and the guys always carefully tape them back on before hurtling into the next day's chaos.

In front of the van, she holds the light steady while Gripps stoops and peels the old tape from the dragging bumper, then starts peeling long, fresh strips to secure it in place for another day. "Where did you guys get this thing, anyway?"

"What, the Beast?" Gripps carefully applies a strip of tape from hood to undercarriage, then pats the van affectionately. "Took it from Blackwing the day of the breakout. It wanted to get out as much as we did." He glances sideways at her, and no one can look sly like Gripps can—she laughs, charmed.

The next second, though, something catches her eye, and she accidentally lets the light drift towards it, a glint on the forest floor a foot away from where he's crouching.

"Mandy?" Gripps prods her gently.

"Sorry," she apologizes, returning the beam to him, then in the next instant she turns it again towards that little shine. "It's just—what is _that_?"

Gripps follows the light, then says, "Oh, wow," reaching down and picking the object up. Now that it's free of the leaves that had partially been obscuring it, she can see that it's a single earring, glinting silver and green beneath the flashlight. Almost to himself, he says, "This looks like what Mom used to make."

"Mom?" Amanda asks before she can remind herself that the topic is probably a painful one—but once she does, she can't quite make herself give him an out.

Gripps silently reaches out, and she lets him place the earring in her free palm, closing her fingers tight over it. He turns back to the van, and she thinks that must be the end of it, but then, conversationally, he says, "My mother used to make jewelry." He pauses, then says, "Maybe still does. I don't know."

The mention of a living parent, one that he was with long enough to remember, startles her, because she'd sort of assumed that all four were orphans— _but no_ , she realizes, thinking back to the very first day she'd spent with them, when she'd played bait willingly while the Rowdy Three snuck up on the agents lying in wait for them. _Your family misses you_ , the older one had said, to practically no reaction from Gripps.

The implications of that are troubling. From what she knows of him, of his sweetness and powerful loyalty, if he's turning his back on his blood family in favor of the new one he's found, it's because _they_ betrayed him, not the other way around. _Betrayed him like turning him into a government program that caged and tested him,_ she thinks.

"I don't blame them," he says, as if he can hear what she's thinking—or maybe he's just picking up on the sudden current of sadness, radiating from her chest. "I _can't_. Back then, I…" he pauses, applies another strip of tape, then admits, "I didn't know how to control it. I was f-feeding off my family… _all_ the time. They were scared."

 _So they put you in a cage._ Amanda doesn't say it out loud, and she's glad he isn't looking at her, because she can feel the frown creasing the skin of her forehead. Maybe it's not her place to be judgmental, especially with her own fucked-up family situation these days, but she loves Gripps, and she can't help but feel bitter, angry towards the frightened family that traded him for their safety.

"How old were you?" she asks softly instead of voicing that opinion.

"Thirteen," he says, glancing over his shoulder at her. The expression on her face seems to trouble him, because _his_ expression softens, and he winks at her, trying to pull her back out of that dark place. "Aw, Amanda. I was all right. I had Martin. He was the one who _really_ had it rough; he was the first they found, spent a whole year alone before I came along."

Ah. Well, that confirms her suspicion that Martin's de facto position of ringleader is due to seniority as well as age. "His parents—?" she starts, but Gripps shakes his head before turning back to the Beast.

"Long dead. Never knew his mom, anyway, and I hear his dad was a real sunovabitch—ODed when Marty was just, hell, eight? He decided to take to the streets rather'n risk foster care."

Amanda frowns again. "But you said Blackwing had only had him a year when you came along."

Gripps chuckles. "That's right."

"That means he spent…" Amanda pauses, trying to fix a loose timeline in her head, their respective ages when they were picked up, but not knowing hard numbers makes it a challenge, and Gripps helps her out.

"Six years on the street," he said, sounding proud. "There's a reason we live like this. After leaving Blackwing, it was the only way Martin knew _how_ —and the rest of us, hell, not like _we_ knew anything more useful. We eventually all took to it cause we were good at it, and it was _fun_ , but those first days, Martin was the one keeping us free and safe." He rips another strip of tape clear and chuckles. "They picked him up in New York City, c'n you imagine that? Made his way all the way up there from whatever… hole in the south he was born in."

Amanda nods, playing it cool, though she's blazing with curiosity. Martin doesn't talk as much as the others, but when he does, she often picks up on a low drawl in the midst of the gravel, _t_ s and _g_ s left off the end of words, but she's from Seattle, born and raised, so it's not like she's the expert—it's good to have confirmation that he's from the region she thought he was. She wonders where he was born, how he made it all the way up to New York that young—and wonders if that's why he's more sparing with words than the others, if it's a holdover from having to make sure he didn't stick out or draw attention.

"There we go, all done," Gripps announces, securing the last bit of tape and rising to his feet. He's starting to look sly again, so she snaps to attention right before he says, "Last one to the fire is a rotten egg" and takes off—she's choking on her own laughter as she follows right on his heels, because she hasn't heard _that_ one since she was just a _kid_ , and before he can make it too far, she jumps on his back.

He _oofs_ and groans, but his hands come up to secure her legs so she doesn't fall and he slows his stride so she can nestle safely into him and get her arms around his neck. Then, he's running again, light-footed, carrying her into the circle formed by the others, into the light and warmth beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway I love Gripps a lot and I'm 99% sure Martin's accent is something roughly southern bc... it sure as hell ain't Canadian, hence lil bit of backstory.
> 
> I'm posting 2 chapters to sort of round out the story and marking it finished so read on!


	5. Chapter 5

Not long after that, they're cruising through Salem, looking for trouble, when Martin says, quietly, "Smell that?"

Vogel grins wide, the way he does when he gets excited (which is often). "Somebody's _scared_ ," he crows.

All of the boys seem to grow a little tenser, taking their weapons up, and Amanda shifts to the front of the van, curious. She leans into the front, between Martin and Cross, and watches out the windshield, looking for the source of what's got the boys all worked up.

She doesn't see anything for a while, not until Martin slows the van and turns onto a street that isn't particularly well-lit. There, they all spot the source of the fear: a single girl, younger than eighteen, heading in their direction from the opposite side. A few yards behind her is a group of older men, loud, laughing, having trouble keeping to the confines of the sidewalk.

Amanda feels her considerable temper flicker, and she clenches her fist around her crowbar. She leans closer to Martin, and, keeping her voice quiet so it doesn't betray her anger (completely unnecessary, they can all feel it, but old habits and all that), and says, "We're not gonna go after _her_ , right?"

Martin tilts his head towards her, looks sideways at her over the rims of his glasses, and she looks steadily back. "She's not the one who deserves to get eaten," she says, still quiet but emphatic.

Martin sucks his teeth, a quick little gesture, indicating his distaste—but not towards her, or the girl on the street. He faces front again, agrees "No, she is not," and revs the engine, powering them across the road, into the empty space on the sidewalk between the girl and the guys who were following her.

The guys are drunk, that much is obvious, and they reel back with a few blurted "Holy shits" and "what the fucks?", but they don't run, full of liquid courage and curiosity. Then the Rowdy Three burst from the growling vehicle and go to work.

Amanda wades in with a will, letting that tightly held anger loose, fueled on by Martin's feral howls and Vogel's cocky, gleeful taunts. One guy, blind with panic, tries to throw a punch at her; she swings the crowbar at him and feels something crack. The sound he makes is like music, and the joy she feels at breaking something that deserves to be broken overflows, spilling out of her in her laughter. It's noisy and chaotic and so much _fun_.

She remembers a time not so long ago, when _she_ was the girl being followed down the street, trailed by a van full of unknowns—but that was different. She'd stopped being scared, funnily enough, when they'd thrown that note through the window, and by the time they'd cheered and shouted encouragement from behind their blacked out windows in response to her drumming, she knew that there was something else going on with that van, didn't mind it trailing her to the store.

She'd also been followed by guys she _was_ scared of—in the years before the pararibulitis, being followed off the bus stop, home from a bar, always when she was alone, always by more than one man. Depending on how bad the vibes were, she'd had to duck into other bars, call her friends on the off-chance that someone was out too and could swing by to provide backup. It feels good to get revenge for all those times when she'd been outnumbered and helpless to fight, forced to run and hide instead.

So, when two guys break away from the group, turn tail and run down the street in a bid to escape the hell raining down on them, she follows without a second thought, racing after them with her crowbar clutched tight in her hand. Martin, using the end of his bat to knock a guy flat on his ass, spots her leaving, and after lighting a fresh cigarette, he lopes after her, keeping her within his sight.

Amanda is lighter and quicker than her prey, and way less drunk, so she catches up with the guys before they can reach the street corner, and turns her shoulder and uses her momentum to slam into the closest one's back, knocking him off his feet and into a nearby trashcan. His friend yelps and wheels around, and Amanda is ready—baring her teeth, she winds back and cracks him hard across the shoulder.

He doesn't react like she's expecting him to. Instead of clutching the injured spot, going down or trying to flee like most people would, he snarls and charges her, fast and unexpected enough that he's able to body-slam her into the brick wall. "Bitch," he spits, and winds back with the unhurt arm, backhanding her hard, but she's still got the crowbar in hand, and even as her head snaps to the side and her lip turns to fire, she jams the prongs into his ribs with as much force as she can muster. He hisses in pain, curling automatically towards the newly injured spot, and she takes advantage of the space to get her heavy-booted foot up, doing something she's seen Martin do sometimes when some guy just won't go down and kicking the guy's knee at an angle as hard as she can.

She hears something crunch, and he collapses to the ground. She laughs, a little breathless, blood hot and lip throbbing where it split, then, twirling her crowbar, she turns to his friend, who is a few feet away, struggling up from the pile of trash where he'd landed.

That's when she feels it—a tickle, deep in her chest, that swells and blocks her windpipe. _No_ , she thinks but can't say, and in the next second, she drops her crowbar without meaning to, her hand going to her throat.

_Something's coming._

She can feel something, creeping up from her chest, and the strength leaves her knees. She blinks and coughs, stumbles, then she's suddenly on all fours, gagging over the cracked concrete as something crawls up her throat.

As preoccupied as she is by what's going on inside her body, she's still relentlessly aware of the guy, looking carefully at her, then laughing as he steps closer. "Well, shit," he muses, brushing grit off his shoulder. "Look at _you_."

That's when Martin decides to intervene. Amanda gags, and through bleary eyes, she sees the guy look up, blurt "Shit" and try to step back, but there's no avoiding the baseball bat hurtling towards his solar plexus with vicious intent.

The bat makes contact, and the guy keels over, his head proving an irresistibly tempting target for Martin's boot. Then whatever's crawling out of Amanda's throat passes over her tongue and through her lips, and she can't _breathe_ , gagging fruitlessly as she views, with horror, the snake landing on the sidewalk beneath her and then slipping away. Before she can even think to be relieved, though, she feels that same curling in her chest, another one ready to work its way up.

Then:

A warm hand, parting her hair so it can lie bare on the skin of her neck, that chilly tingle that means he's pulling the ugliness out. She could collapse, she's so relieved, but she still feels that snake, heavy in her throat.

It's a bad attack. It takes a long time before she realizes that her lungs and stomach are not, in fact, housing reptiles eager to escape, and somewhere in the process, she passes out for a few seconds—embarrassing, she hasn't done that since the very first time the Rowdy Three drained her symptoms. All she knows is suddenly, she's lying with her cheek pressed to the concrete, her breathing clear and with nothing stirring inside of her, and Martin is stooping beside her, brushing her hair out of her face and tilting his head so he can see her better.

"There you are," he murmurs around his cigarette.

Amanda pulls in a shuddering breath, then gets her arms under her despite the fact that they feel a lot like boiled noodles. Fortunately, Martin helps—he wraps ringed fingers around her upper arm and rises, carefully pulling her up with him.

Of course, the weakness doesn't dissipate once she's on her feet—the opposite, really; her knees buckle as soon as she tries to put weight on them, and she clutches at Martin's arm for balance. "Whoa," he says, catching her before she can fall, and she chuckles ruefully, shaking her head like that'll make her strength to return to her.

"This is so _stupid_ ," she groans, feeling just a bit embarrassed, the way she always seems to after they siphon off an attack, despite the fact that she _knows_ that feeling drained like this is a hundred times better than the panic and pain, and that _feeling_ _weak_ isn't… well, a _weakness._

Martin isn't having it. "Watch the cherry," he says briefly, warning her of the burning cigarette before he leans down, then his arm is pushing against the back of her knees, and she couldn't keep her footing even if she wanted to (she doesn't)—another second and she's in his arms, her arm sliding instinctively around the back of his neck even as mutters his name in startled protest.

"Relax," he says, firmly, but with a gentleness. "Not like you weigh any more'n a fly," and then he's carrying her back to where they'd left the others.

Amanda, briefly, tries to figure if it's worth arguing with him just because she doesn't enjoy feeling vulnerable (physically or otherwise) but ultimately decides against it—the Rowdy Three aren't exactly the best people to try that on, because when it comes to what she's feeling, they always know if she's lying. Instead, she rests her forehead against that tattoo on his neck ( _in control,_ it says, which is very Martin—Gripps did it for him, she'd discovered, and he offered to give her one as well; she'd told him as soon as she can decide what she _wants_ , she'll take him up on it) and enjoys being this close to him. It seems like she rarely gets to touch and hug and roughhouse with Martin the way she does with the others.

_That's stupid,_ she thinks, and, feeling sleepy and glad that he's here, the draining taking her usual (limited) walls down once again, she reaches out and plucks the cigarette from his mouth, bringing it to her own and taking a drag.

The light's reflecting off his glasses, making it difficult to see his eyes from her angle, but she thinks he's surprised. His voice doesn't sound any different than usual, though, as he says, "You better watch it—keep that up, you'll start to sound like Tom Waits."

"What, like that's supposed to be a deterrent? Tom Waits is the coolest guy ever," she says, taking another drag to affirm the view, and Martin chuckles. "Anyway," she says on the exhale, "you're one to talk. I literally never see you without a cigarette."

"Mm, well, that's different," he tells her. "Our bodies don't work the same as yours. We don't want you keeling over early, now, do we?"

"Oh, buzzkill," she grumbles, but she doesn't mean it, and puts the cigarette back in his mouth. She feels the brush of his rough lips against the back of her index and middle fingers as he tightens them around the butt again, and tries to play it off like she didn't just feel a cool, not-unpleasant shiver at the touch.

"Serious," is all he says. "I'm not about to tell you how to live your life, but I speak for the rest of the boys as well as myself when I say we'd like you to stick around for a while. So maybe, instead of peelin' out alone after a pair of dipshits, take some backup with you."

She lets her head loll against his shoulder and says, a bit sarcastically, "Okay, Papa Wolf."

He turns his head, and this time she's _sure_ he's surprised. "What."

She doesn't bother to explain, because between his somewhat lupine appearance, his largely unspoken role as group leader and protector, and really, the _howling_ , she thinks it should be obvious. Instead, she just says, "Thanks for getting my back," and, doing something she wouldn't dare to if she was at full power and not already this close to him, she tightens her arm around his neck, hugging instead of holding, and kisses his bristly cheek.

He doesn't really react other than to let a small cloud of smoke loose into the air to form a silvery halo around their heads. She doesn't let his stoicism bother her, resting her head again on his shoulder, where the leather vest yields to the shirtsleeve made soft and a little ragged with age. A few more seconds, and then he says, "Anytime, Drummer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felt right to go out on a little bit of an Amanda/Martin vibe :)
> 
> I might write some stuff to follow this later on when I have some level of control over my life again but I think for now I covered everything I wanted to, so this is a good place to leave it. Thanks so much to everyone who read and commented and left support and such, I really appreciate it!


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